Tag: critique

  • Angela from Jamestown

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today we move from royalty to slavery. Earlier this week the Washington Post published an article about an African woman (girl?) named Angela. She was forcibly removed from West Africa to Luanda in present-day Angola. From there she was crammed into a slave ship and sent towards Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. Before she arrived,…

  • Who Bettors Think Will Sit Upon the Iron Throne

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last night was the third episode of the final series of Game of Thrones and thus marked its midway point. I shall save you from any spoilers, but I thought we could do a lighter post to start the week. This comes from the Economist and simply plots the characters and their implied probability of…

  • American Nuclear Generating Stations

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Those that have followed me for a long time know that I am a big fan of nuclear power. It does have some drawbacks, namely its radioactive waste, but otherwise creates enormous amounts of stable, carbon-free electricity. So when I saw this article from Bloomberg about the impact of climate change on US nuclear powered…

  • Redaction Action

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week, the Department of Justice released the Mueller Report. It was—and still is—sort of a big deal. But this week I want to take a look at a few different approaches to covering the report in the media. We will start with a piece from Vox on the redactions in the report. After all,…

  • An Illustrated Guide to the Deaths in Game of Thrones

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Did something important happen yesterday in the news? We’ll get to it. But for now, it’s Friday. You’ve made it to the weekend. So sit back and binge. On gin or Game of Thrones, whatever. Last Sunday the hit HBO show Game of Thrones returned for its final series. I did not have time to…

  • Israeli Electoral History

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    One of the important stories of last week that was not black hole related was that of the re-election of the Likud Party in Israel, a party headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. This will be his fourth consecutive time as prime minister plus a fifth back in the late 1990s. Of course, he is facing an…

  • Carbon Taxes

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week the New York Times published an article about carbon taxes, looking at their adoption around the world and their effectiveness. It is a fascinating article about how different countries have chosen to implement the broad policy idea and the various forms it can take. And, most importantly, how some of those policies can end…

  • How Does the UK View Their Political Parties?

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    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    The United Kingdom crashes out of the European Union on Friday. That means there is no deal to safeguard continuity of trading arrangements, healthcare, air traffic control, security and intelligence deals, &c. Oh, and it will likely wreck the economy. No big deal, Theresa. But what do UK voters think about their leading political parties…

  • The Entire United States

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last month Politico published an article called the Democrats’ Dilemma. It looked at what will likely be the crux of their debate for their 2020 candidates. Go moderate or hard left? The super simple version of the argument is that do you win by persuading independents and moderate Republicans to vote Democratic? Or do you…

  • The Rise of White Nationalist Terrorism

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Whilst I was on holiday, a terrorist killed nearly fifty people in Christchurch, New Zealand. Except this time, he was a white man and the victims were all Muslims. Admittedly, I really did not read much about it until I returned to the States, but it clearly is not a thing I was expecting out…